Trashing DemocracyVoters Outreach of America, an outfit
largely funded by the GOP, is accused
of trashing registration forms of hundreds of Democrats in Nevadaby Bill Berkowitzwww.dissidentvoice.org
October 15, 2004

These
days, schemes to suppress the vote are coming down the pike at a NASCAR-like
clip: In July, Michigan State Rep. John Pappageorge told a gathering of
party officials at an election strategy meeting of the Oakland County
Republican Party that "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going
to have a tough time in this election cycle." In Orlando, Fla., members of
the Orlando League of Voters -- an African-American civic group made up of
mostly elderly women that has helped turn out large numbers of Democratic
voters in the city -- were the subject of an intimidating house-to-house
investigation by Governor Jeb Bush’s state police, who were supposedly
checking out charges of electoral irregularities. The Rev. Jesse Jackson
recently charged Republican Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell
with “trying to reverse gains made by the civil rights movement by limiting
where some Ohioans can cast their ballots,” the Palm Beach Post recently
reported.

Now,
a new voter suppression scheme has been uncovered: One that thwarts the
democratic process before voters even exercise their franchise. A voter
registration outfit largely funded by the Republican National Committee is
being accused of destroying the registration forms of hundreds of newly
registered Democratic voters in Nevada.

On
Tuesday, November 2, when hundreds and perhaps thousands of registered
Democrats enter their polling places in Nevada, they will be in for a rude
surprise: They won’t be allowed to vote. Even though they filled out their
registration forms properly and they did it way ahead of the deadline, there
will be no record of their being registered to vote. That’s because,
according to an investigation by Las Vegas television station KLAS, a
private voter registration company called Voters Outreach of America -- an
outfit largely funded by the Republican National Committee -- has trashed
hundreds of registration forms of registered Democrats.

“Anyone who has recently registered or re-registered to vote outside a mall
or grocery store or even government building may be affected,” George Knapp,
an investigative reporter for the television station’s Eyewitness News
I-Team, reported. Knapp was able to obtain information about an “alleged
widespread pattern of potential registration fraud aimed at Democrats,” from
former employees of the company.

Over
the past few months, Voters Outreach of America has been working the Las
Vegas area, sending more than 300 part-time workers to shopping malls,
grocery stores, government buildings and busy street corners throughout the
city to register voters. The kicker, according to the former workers:
Apparently, the company was only interested in Republican registrations.

Knapp
reported that two former employees claimed that they had “personally
witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by
Democrats.”

"We
caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and
he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the
garbage and she tells her assistant to get those from me," said Eric
Russell, a former Voters Outreach employee.

According to Knapp, Russell said he was able “to retrieve a pile of shredded
paperwork including signed voter registration forms, all from Democrats” and
he “took them to the Clark County Election Department and confirmed that
they had not, in fact, been filed with the county as required by law.”

When
the I-Team went to talk with Voters Outreach, the company had abandoned its
offices and they were rented by someone else. According to the Voters
Outreach landlord, the outfit was “evicted for non-payment of rent.”

Recently, the Reno Gazette Journal ran the following ad for “Canvassing
Neighborhoods in Support of the GOP”: Voter's Outreach of America is hiring
door-to-door canvassers asking people to register to vote. Must be at least
18 yrs of age, no felonies, registered to vote and have own transportation.
Need good communication skills and professional appearance…Paid for by the
Republican National Committee.”

According to a web site called
TOPDOG04.COM, Voters Outreach “has set up registration drives in
Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Florida and Nevada
and is accused of the same things [as KLAS-TV reported] in most if not all
of these states.”

TOPDOG04.COM also reports that in a separate incident, Sproul & Associates,
a Phoenix, Arizona-based Republican consulting firm run by Nathan Sproul,
former head of the Arizona Republican party and Arizona Christian Coalition,
which has hired Voters Outreach, tried to pass itself off as America Votes,
a truly non-partisan voter registration drive.

In
Arizona, Sproul paid Aaron "A.J." James, the director of Voters Outreach of
America, “to get as many signatures as possible for [Independent
presidential candidate Ralph] Nader,” Arizona indymedia.org reported.
"'Aaron [James] told me he was out here getting signatures for Nader. So I
can only assume that Diane [Burns] was too,' said Derek Lee, who, as owner
of Lee Petitions, was part of the traveling petition carnival that descended
on Arizona this spring.”

On
Wednesday, October 13, the Associated Press reported that Sproul “denied...
that a group he hired to register Republicans in Nevada deliberately tore up
Democratic voter registration forms.” Sproul blamed the controversy on a
disgruntled former employee.

A
recent report issued by the People for the American Way Foundation and the
NAACP documented numerous incidents of voter intimidation and suppression
over the past 39 years. The report notes that, as we might expect, the
tactics have become "more subtle and subterranean" over time. But it also
demonstrates that attempts to suppress the vote persist to this day.

According to the report, "Robbing voters of their right to vote and to have
their vote counted undermines the very foundations of our democratic
society. Politicians, political strategists, and party officials who may
consider voter intimidation and suppression efforts as part of their
tactical arsenal should prepare to be exposed and prosecuted."

The
report concludes by saying: "State and federal officials, including Justice
Department and national political party officials, should publicly repudiate
such tactics and make clear that those who engage in them will face severe
punishment."

Newly
registered Nevada voters are being urged to call the Clark County Election
Department at 455-VOTE or go to the County’s
web site to see if they are registered.

Across the country,
a coalition of liberal, nonpartisan groups -- including People for the
American Way, the NAACP, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Lawyers
Committee for Civil Rights Under Law -- will be sending lawyers and law
students to key precincts in unprecedented numbers -- 2,000 in Florida
alone. Their T-shirts and signs will bear the message "Having trouble
voting? Call us." They will carry disposable cameras to record infractions.

And,
according to the Newhouse News Service, The Kerry campaign and the
Democratic National Committee are going to “dispatch as many as 10,000
lawyers across America on Election Day and have established five
post-election ‘SWAT teams’ to hit the ground running wherever they might be
needed.”

Bill Berkowitz
is a longtime observer of the conservative movement. His
WorkingForChange.com column Conservative Watch documents the
strategies, players, institutions, victories and defeats of the American
Right.